Type 1 diabetes is on the rise among children and the Barbados Diabetes Association wants nurses assigned to schools to help manage this and other health problems.
At a Press conference at the association’s Beckles Road headquarters yesterday, president Noreen Merritt said the incidence of the disease among school age children in Barbados presented a problem for teachers who, under current Government regulations, were not permitted to assist with administering the necessary medication during the school day.
She suggested bringing nurses into the schools from polyclinics in catchment areas as a solution to the problem.
Merritt revealed that statistics from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital indicated that between 2006 to 2010, 145 new diabetic cases had been diagnosed in the age group just below six to 25. Merritt, a nurse, said there were reports of as many as five children being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in some months of the current year.
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